The Steel Kiss

Had occurred to him. Then he shrugged, a gesture he was capable of, despite his condition. “Just curious.” Rhyme had in fact learned a number of things about Juliette Archer. Master’s degrees in public health and biological science. She’d been a field epidemiologist for the Transmittable Diseases Unit of the New York Institutes of Health in Westchester. She now wanted a career change to go into criminal forensic science. Her home was presently downtown, the loft district, SoHo. Her son, eleven, was a star soccer player. She herself had gotten some favorable notices for her modern dance performances in Manhattan and Westchester. She’d lived in Bedford, New York, before her divorce.

No, not a spy.

She continued to gaze into his eyes.

On impulse—exceedingly rare for him—he said, “All right.”

A formal smile. “Thank you. I can start now.”

A pause, “Tomorrow.”

Archer seemed amused and cocked her head playfully. As if she might easily have negotiated and won a change in the sign-on date but didn’t feel like pushing the matter.

“You need the address?” Rhyme asked.

“I have it.”

In lieu of shaking hands they both nodded, sealing the agreement. Archer smiled and then her right index finger moved to the touchpad of her own wheelchair, a silver Storm Arrow, the same model Rhyme had used until a few years ago. “I’ll see you then.” She turned the unit and eased up the aisle and out the doorway.

CHAPTER 4

The detached house was dark-red brick. The color close to that of Patrolman Buddy Everett’s glasses frames, the color of dried blood, viscera. You couldn’t help but think that. Under the circumstances.

Amelia Sachs was lingering, her eyes taking in the warm illumination from inside, which flickered occasionally as the many visitors here floated between lamp and window. The effect could be like a strobe; the house was small and the guests many.

Death brings out even the most tenuous connections.

Lingering.

In her years as a police officer Sachs had delivered news of loss to dozens of family members. She was competent at it, vamping on the lines they were taught by the psychologists at the academy. (“I’m very sorry for your loss.” “Do you have someone you can turn to for support?” With a script like that, you had to improvise.)

But tonight was different. Because Sachs didn’t believe she’d ever been present at the exact moment when a victim’s electrons departed cells, or, if you were of a different ilk, the spirit abandoned the corpus. She’d had her hands on Greg Frommer’s arm at the moment of death. And as much as she did not want to make this trip, the pact had been sealed. She wouldn’t break it.

She slid her holster east of her hip, out of sight. It seemed a decent thing to do, though she had no explanation why. The other concession to this mission was to make a stop at her apartment, also in Brooklyn, not terribly far, to shower and change clothes. It would have taken luminol and an alternative light source wand to find a lick of blood anywhere on her person.

Up the stairs and ringing the bell.

The door was opened by a tall man in a Hawaiian shirt and orange shorts. Fifties or so. Of course, this was not the funeral; that would be later. Tonight the gathering was the quick descent of friends and relatives to support, to bring food, to distract from the grief and to focus it.

“Hi,” he said. His eyes were as red as the lei around the neck of the parrot on his belly. Frommer’s brother? The resemblance was jarring.

“I’m Amelia Sachs. With the NYPD. Is Mrs. Frommer able to speak with me for a moment or two?” She said this kindly, her voice cleansed of officialdom.

“I’m sure. Please come in.”

The house contained little furniture and the pieces were mismatched and threadbare. The few pictures on the walls might have come from Walmart or Target. Frommer, she’d learned, had been a salesclerk at a shoe store in the mall, working for minimum pay. The TV was small and the cable box basic. No video game console, though she saw they had at least one child—a skateboard, battered and wrapped in duct tape, sat against a far corner. Some Japanese manga comics were stacked on the floor beside a scabby end table.

“I’m Greg’s cousin, Bob.”

“I’m so sorry about what happened.” Sometimes you fell into rote.

“We couldn’t believe it. The wife and I live in Schenectady. We got here as fast as we could.” He said again, “We couldn’t believe it. To…  well, die in an accident like that.” Despite the tropical costume, Bob grew imposing. “Somebody’s going to pay for this. That never should’ve happened. Somebody’s going to pay.”

A few people of the other visitors nodded at her, eyeing her clothing, picked out carefully. Calf-length skirt in dark green, black jacket and blouse. She was dressed funereally, though not by design. This was Sachs’s typical uniform. Dark offers a more uncooperative target profile than light.

“I’ll get Sandy.”

“Thanks.”